


Burn (In Your Own Flame)

by waywardmuse



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 04:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10734135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardmuse/pseuds/waywardmuse
Summary: The lie honestly starts off as a joke.Not Xanxus’s best joke but a disillusioned Tsuna back from the future runs with the idea.So the lie may start off as a bad idea that has a certain level of usefulness for the both of them.They didn’t expect to end upactually engaged.





	Burn (In Your Own Flame)

**Author's Note:**

> “You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame. How could you become new if you haven’t first become ashes?” Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
> 
> Content warnings are in the note at the end of the page.

It honestly starts off...as a joke.

Not a _good_ joke but enough to mess with the scum.

But no one besides Squalo fucking gets it because they are all trash.

* * *

The smart thing to do after a meeting with the Vongola Don would be to head back to the Varia Compound to get drunk like a good little girl, especially after the Don just gave her a deduction in pay for her second attempt at a coup.  A couple thousand euros is barely a slap on the wrist, leaving many of the Vongola antsy around her.

Which is exactly why Xanxus sticks around; it’s the perfect recipe for trash to do something idiotic and give her an opportunity to beat the shit out of anyone ridiculous enough that thinks they know better than their Don.

She isn’t sure _what_ her not-father is thinking; she’s just as surprised with the light sentence after being defrosted a second time.

The Don’s Guardians are throwing around words about _pity_ and _don’t be blinded by misplaced guilt_ to the Don. .

Like that ever rules Timoteo’s actions.

The fucker _knows_ her, _knows_ she’s not going to attack like that again.

He even said so.

Fucking Vongola Intuition.

So she settles in a booth at a bar in the heart of Vongola territory, pretending she doesn’t spot CEDEF agents or Coyote himself. She slouches and spreads her legs wide, sitting like she owns the place.

(And doesn’t she? After everything, her not-father has not spoken a _word_ on disinheritance; is not everything of the Vongola’s still hers to possess and protect?)

Squalo grabs them a bottle of tequila and shot glasses. He isn’t stupid enough to say anything, not willing today to draw her temper onto himself the way he often does to minimize her actions against others.

He knows her moods well.

But stupid enough to think she doesn't recognize his attempts to ‘manage’ her.

 _Trash_.

She ignores the shot glasses and takes a swig from the bottle. She isn’t sure how long it will take for some idiot to decide to challenge her; once hours would have passed until someone reached the level of shitfaced needed to challenge or hit on Xanxus, but that was before being frozen (eight years by her not-father, then another two months by the fucking Sawada brat), her ‘betrayals’ of the Vongola, and her defeats.

Now? Xanxus expects the more conniving of the Vongola to descend on her like she’s fourteen again, out of her older brothers’ sight and untested.

She hates looking just as sixteen as the day she was first frozen—she didn’t _feel_ sixteen, not from the moment she uncovered her not-father’s lies and planned to prove her worth rather than hide behind the pretense of Vongola blood—but today that might work in her favor.

Eight years is a long time. Many may have forgotten her reputation or be fooled by her disgrace.

Xanxus won’t let them think of her as _weak_ , even if she has to shoot half of Italy.

She takes another drink, ignoring Squalo’s look. Does he really expect her to _share_ after having to put up with her not-father and his guardians?

Xanxus catches snippets of various conversations in the bar, searching for an opening.

And that is when she hears _whore_ and _dirty foreigner_ and the type of speculations about a girl that can incite homicide that would be considered justifiable by mafia family members.

Growing up Xanxus heard that and much more said about her and her mom. When the Vongola claimed her, no one dared to say such words about her where her brothers and (not) father could hear but the first man she shot dead had dared to speak to her that way on a trip to Venice she had made on her own at thirteen.

Xanxus usually ignores the degenerates when they aren’t suicidal enough to address herself that way but, _oh_ , that name drop!

She doesn’t want to hear _anything_ concerning Sawada Tsunayoshi but they do not _stop_ their lewd conversation.

Her hand tightens around the bottle. Sawada is the future of the Vongola, the only other woman to be the Vongola Don besides _Daniela_.

She thinks of her Grandmother Daniela (and not even a lack of relation to her shit son can take away Daniela being _her_ Grandmother; Xanxus wears the woman’s rings, knows her stories, and remembers her strength that the trash seem eager to forget).

She remembers the mafia world chiding her not being as beautiful or feminine as Daniela from the very beginning, all of them forgetting the blood Grandmother spilled to keep the Vongola hers and how Grandmother favored Xanxus.

 _Beauty_ is a weapon but Xanxus wields her guns and Flame and wits just fine; she has proven that to anyone who saw her a lesser than her brothers.

(Her stupid brothers, all dead and buried and _gone_ . It’s not _fair_ ; if she hadn’t been on ice…)

These days, no one can make a bullshit claim about her _feminine_ weakness; not with her brothers dead and the Vongola to be given to the Sawada brat.

The idiots keep talking, betting loudly on what age the Vongola is going to marry Sawada off and how the future husband would really be the _real_ Don.

Xanxus hasn’t forgotten what idiots used to say her own prospects and hearing it towards Sawada pisses her off.

The future Decima is fucking fourteen; young and _dumb_.

Too young and dumb to survive, Xanxus had her brothers and Grandmother; Sawada has that idiotic troupe of Guardians, all hormones and barely half a brain between them.

If the brat let one of these idiots mess with her, or some fucker from another family, the trash would get even weaker.

The _Vongola_ would be weaker.

Xanxus will not let that happen.

And tonight she’s not going to let this insult go.

Xanxus takes one more drink of tequila and shoves the bottle towards Squalo.

Ignoring Squalo’s questioning glance, she stalks across the room and grabs the nearest moron by the throat. Xanxus pulls her gun from her hip holster and leverages the barrel under his chin.  “What were you saying about Sawada?”

Everyone’s eyes are on her.

Good.

“What, the foreign bitch who thinks she can be Vongola?” The stench of alcohol on his breathe likely fuels a good portion of the shit that’s come out of his mouth but a special sort of stupid must inspire him to dare say that shit in Vongola territory.

She clicks off the safety of her gun. “Don’t speak of Sawada like that.”

“What, she your new bitch?” He sneers. Xanxus doesn’t recognize him but apparently he recognizes her well enough to know taste in paramours but not to remember people do not mess with her. The stupidity of drunk chauvinists is a powerful force.“Haven’t you grown out of your games, dyke?”

Part of her rages at the insult to future of the Vongola but another part of her—which she once thought of as Vongola Intuition but knows now that it _can’t be_ —sees an opportunity in those words. She can feel her Flames well up, bright and clear and nothing like ice.

With sudden clarity, the idea forms; it’s not a plot yet but it can be, can strike all of her annoyances—her not-father, that CEDEF idiot, the Sawada brat, and her trash guardians—if she says a simple thing.

The very thought is _hilarious_. Xanxus reigns in her temper; there is a game to play.

“The Sawada girl is _mine_.” She says with a tiger’s smirk and throws the idiot into his companion. They both hit the wall with a rather satisfying crack. She resets the safety and holsters her gun and looks around the bar, ignoring the shocked expressions. “Anyone else have anything to say about me and Sawada?”

The bar is silent beyond the jazz music in the background.

Coyote stares at her but doesn’t say anything and doesn’t look away. She glares at him and walks out of the bar.

Squalo trails after her, hovering quietly until they are a good block away from the bar and at their car. He settles in the driver seat and waits for her to get in before breaking his silence. “What the fuck was that?!”

“Taking care of the trash.” Xanxus puts her feet on the dash and stretches out. She’s just settled when Squalo starts driving. “You forgot the tequila.”

“I don’t give a fuck about the tequila!”

Xanxus glares and considers shooting him. The car isn’t going that fast and Xanxus really does want tequila.

“Xanxus,” Squalo says, quiet and tired.

Sounding more _adult_ that Xanxus has ever heard him.

She hates that he’s grown up without her, that her time in ice makes her closer to the Sawada brat in age than Squalo. “I’m fucking with them. All of them.”

Squalo pauses, eyes focused on the busy streets. At the next stoplight, he turns to look at her. “Another game? Like Beccio’s daughter?”

“It’s a _joke_.”

Squalo laughs this time. “You should have said it in front of Sawada. The idiot, not the brat.”

Xanxus snorts but is pleased that Squalo’s on the same page as her agian. “The brat would probably cry.”

She imagines the scenario with amusement for a moment, then dismisses it in favor of telling Squalo how shitty his driving skills are.

**Author's Note:**

> Content Warning: Age. Xanxus is 16 and Tsuna is 14. No actually resembling a romantic relationship will happen between them while they are underage, though they will both state they are in a relationship. This is going to be a slow build; they will go from enemies to friends first and also from teenagers to adults. And while Xanxus generally thinks of herself as an adult (and being in my late 20s, I certainly disagree that 16 is an adult), she certainly doesn’t think Tsuna is. 
> 
> Other Content Warning: Minor OC using homophobic language, sexism.  
> If you have any concerns or questions, feel free to message me.  
> [My writing notes for chapter 1 on tumblr.](http://waywardmusings.tumblr.com/post/160002333731/writing-notes-burn-in-your-own-flames-chp-1) Includes minor spoilers.


End file.
